Cadet's death sparks emergency care

By Darren Gray CanberraSeptember 2 2002

Emergency antibiotics to prevent the devastating meningococcal disease were given to about 50 elite trainee defence force officers, defence officials and medical staff in Canberra yesterday after the death of a 19-year-old Victorian officer cadet at the weekend.

The second-year electrical engineering student at the Australian Defence Force Academy was found dead in his room by a colleague shortly after 6am on Saturday after he failed to attend the morning roll-call.

The Defence Department declined to release his name.

The director-general of the Defence Health Service, Air Commodore Tony Austin, said the midshipman had spent Friday in his room after reporting ill.

"He was seen by a doctor on Friday morning and the symptoms were really just consistent with a flu-like illness; the aches and the pains and feeling pretty miserable," Air Commodore Austin said. "It's just identical to the sorts of flu-like illnesses you see in that age group in a way. Some people then deteriorate very, very rapidly, and often in single-digit hours develop the characteristic rash and then go into multi-system failure." ");document.write("

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Evidence suggested he had been dead for several hours when he was found, Air Commodore Austin said.

The preventive antibiotics were given to people who had come into close contact with the midshipman over the past week. Pathology tests today could determine the strain of meningococcal involved.

A spokeswoman for the ACT Health Department said it had advised the defence force that a vaccination program for the 1075 students, military and academic staff at the academy was not necessary because it was just one isolated case.

There were nine cases of meningococcal disease in 2001-02 in the ACT and no deaths.